Enough interesting things and serious engagement to make it worth reading
Good exchange in the comments section over at Alone on a Boreal Stage, led by Zach ‘Hawkweed’ Wells, who first off quotes American poet Robert Pinsky
"I think that if an audience for any art is having a good time, they are willing to suspend the need for comprehension for a while—that’s part of the pleasure. So if the poem by Wallace Stevens or Marianne Moore sounds great, is amusing or engaging or spooky in a way that we like… then like the devotee of opera or rap music or rock music, we are happy to understand only gradually, over many listenings. And if it doesn’t sound good, it is boring even if we understand it. That’s the trouble with a lot of boring art: you understand the stupid cop show, or the tedious sitcom gag, too soon and too completely. Same for the stupid middlebrow poem."
Then follows up with this:
When I’m assigned to review a book, I want nothing more than to have that rare magical experience one has when reading great literature. Major understatement: It doesn’t often happen. A reasonable second place is a book with enough interesting things and evidence of serious engagement on the part of the author to make it worth the time to read. This happens fairly often. Sometimes, not that often, one encounters very little evidence of honest effort on the part of the writer (and, by extension their editors and publishers) and, moreover, next to nothing redeeming in the book. In short, you get the kind [of] "stupid" art that Pinsky’s talking about.
I couldn’t agree more. Greatness is indeed a scarce commodity, mediocrity is not; reviewers, commentators readers need to nullify feelings of guilt about not liking most writing that comes to them published and polished up in fancy looking packages, or about hurting feelings, or coming across as a negativity monger…consider the published output of some of our greatest writers and poets…consider how much of it was mediocre…perhap this message should affix itself to all negative reviews. Perhaps it would mitigate some of the hurt…and hostility.
November 14th, 2009 at 7:50 PM
Once again we nestle into a convenient little binary that sets up negativity as the only valid form of criticism…one wonders really if anyone knows what negativity or critical thinking even is? Working on an essay on this topic so I won’t go on here, though I have much to say about the assumptions at work here.
November 14th, 2009 at 11:23 PM
LH: Look forward to reading what you have to say. As for what ‘negative’ is:
I’d say it’s what critics who state and argue their truths, honestly stating what they think is good and bad typically get called…If you believe – as I do – that great work comes along very, very infrequently…and that all work should be measured against the best, then the vast majority of your criticism is going to be ‘negative.’ If it’s any good, then it’ll explain why the work in question isn’t great…and ideally this will help its author
You might say that ‘negativity’ is the wash that those who believe in the importance of evaluative criticism get doused with; just as those who believe in descriptive, ‘thematic’ criticism sometimes get soaked with ‘boosterism’
November 14th, 2009 at 11:27 PM
Incidentally, not sure how this post ‘nestles into a convenient little binary’…there are all sorts of degrees and shades of bad…
But if you’re extricating yourself from the evaluative…then I suppose you are indeed above all this nasty good-bad business.
November 15th, 2009 at 11:06 AM
I reject the either/or premise of this argument, and in general the way this entire issue is being framed here in Canada, and in other streams. Very convenient to set the terms for what one wants and handily reject anything that seems to rattle that. Nuance is I believe what I’m calling for. More, not less rigor, sharper, more penetrating critiques, more evaluative criticism, a broader perspective, more illumination, more context. More discussion about what makes something excellent, in fact, why? What is at work in it?
So yes, I reject the simplistic terms of this argument, appearing widely these days.
As for evaluative, in what sense? Much of what is called evaluative these days is simply dismissing another’s artistic practice wholesale.
November 15th, 2009 at 11:25 AM
Well, I’ve written quite a bit about evaluative criticism on this blog over the past year, much of which is captured in this review I wrote for RainTaxi here:
http://www.raintaxi.com/online/2009spring/carroll.shtml
for more, if interested, you can simply search this site for use of the term.
November 15th, 2009 at 11:44 AM
Ah yes, in that sense. Well, more on that to come as well.